The new feminized collectives that demand to retire earlier: requirements and how it is decided who can apply

The initiative you are referring to is the Non-Legislative Motion 161/003254, from the Plurinational Parliamentary Group Sumar, concerning the retirement reduction coefficients for passenger cabin crew in the air sector. It is being processed in the Congress of Deputies and is intended for debate in the Committee on Labor, Social Economy, Inclusion, Social Security, and Migrations. As of today, its text has been published (04/16/2026) and no votes have been recorded, so the initiative is still in the initial stage of committee processing.

From this situation, the expected parliamentary steps for this NLM are, in summary, the following:

1. Current situation: NLM published and referred to committee

The published text indicates that the Plurinational Group Sumar presents the Non-Legislative Motion "concerning the retirement reduction coefficients for passenger cabin crew in the air sector" for debate in the Committee on Labor, Social Economy, Inclusion, Social Security, and Migrations. This implies that:

• The Congress Board has already qualified the initiative and agreed to admit it for processing.
• The NLM has been published in the Official Bulletin of the General Courts (Series D) on 04/16/2026.
• It has been assigned to the competent Committee by subject matter (Labor and Social Security, broadly speaking).

2. Inclusion in the Committee's agenda

The next practical milestone is its inclusion in the agenda of a Committee session:

• The Committee Board and Spokespersons agree on which initiatives are debated in each session, based on workload, agreements among groups, and political priorities.
• When scheduled, the agenda will list the NLM identified by its number (161/003254) and a brief reference to its subject (retirement reduction coefficients for cabin crew).

Until that inclusion occurs, the initiative remains "on the Committee's docket," formally under processing but without a debate yet held.

3. Debate in the Labor Committee

Once included in the agenda, the committee debate takes place:

• First, the Sumar deputy defending the NLM intervenes, explaining the objective of recognizing retirement reduction coefficients for cabin crew, the hardship of their working conditions, and the need to adapt Social Security regulations.
• Next, spokespersons from other groups intervene to state their positions: support, rejection, or requests for changes.
• During the debate, it is common to negotiate transactional texts between the proposing group (Sumar) and other groups to try to achieve wording with broader support than the initial proposal.

4. Possible transactional text and voting

After the debate, the voting phase occurs:

• If there is agreement, a transactional text agreed upon by several groups is put to a vote, replacing the original.
• If not, the Sumar text as originally presented is voted on.
• The vote is by simple majority of the Committee members present.

In the consulted records, no votes associated with this NLM have yet been recorded, so the main pending step is precisely holding the debate and its vote in committee.

5. Effects of the adopted agreement

It is important to emphasize that a Non-Legislative Motion is a political impulse initiative without direct legal effects on the legal system:

• If the Sumar NLM is approved, the Congress will be urging the Government to study and implement specific retirement reduction coefficients for passenger cabin crew in the air sector.
• The technical way to comply could be, for example, the approval of a Royal Decree that includes cabin crew among the groups with reduction coefficients, or the modification of Social Security regulations of legal rank, if deemed necessary.
• If the NLM is rejected, no mandate is generated for the Government, although the political debate and group positions remain recorded in the minutes.

6. Steps after the agreement

Once the NLM is voted on, the approved agreement (if any) is:

• Published in the Official Bulletin of the Courts as a Committee resolution.
• Formally sent to the Government, which decides how and when to address it (or not) through regulatory proposals or administrative measures.

In summary, the Sumar NLM on retirement reduction coefficients for cabin crew is in the Congress, published and referred to the Labor Committee, still pending inclusion in the agenda, debate, possible negotiation of a transactional text, and voting. Its approval would constitute a political mandate to the Government to review the inclusion of cabin crew in the retirement reduction coefficient system, but it does not itself modify current legislation.

The competence over retirement age reduction coefficients is essentially a Social Security matter. This means that the evaluation of requests to establish or review reduction coefficients corresponds to the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migrations and, within it, to the Social Security Administration (especially the Directorate General for Social Security Regulation and the common services that provide data and studies).

The general framework is in Article 206 of the General Social Security Law (LGSS, consolidated text approved by Royal Legislative Decree 8/2015), which foresees that the minimum retirement age may be lowered, through reduction coefficients, for groups or professional activities of exceptionally arduous, toxic, dangerous, or unhealthy nature, with high morbidity or mortality rates. The law requires that, before approving these coefficients, studies be conducted on:

• Accident rates in the sector and working conditions (arduousness, danger, toxicity, unhealthiness).
• Incidence in temporary and permanent disability processes, as well as mortality.
• Physical or psychological requirements necessary to continue performing the activity from a certain age.

This framework has been developed by regulation through a specific procedure (currently regulated by Royal Decree 402/2025) and the creation of an Evaluation Commission (Order PJC/1146/2025), in which several ministries participate but where Social Security plays a central role as a technical body and responsible for the financial balance of the system.

1. Reception and admission of requests

Requests to apply reduction coefficients are not submitted by individual workers, but by:

• Most representative employer and union organizations (for employees).
• Associations of self-employed workers, together with employers and unions (for self-employed).
• Competent public administrations, when it affects public sector personnel.

According to the LGSS and the regulatory procedure, these requests are submitted electronically, precisely identifying the activity (CNAE, occupations, specific functions) and providing the necessary information. The Directorate General for Social Security Regulation acts as the instructing body: it registers the request, verifies formal requirements, may request corrections, and decides on admission for processing. Some of these powers have been nuanced by case law: for example, the Supreme Court has annulled the requirement to provide the tax identification number (NIF) of all affected workers as an initial requirement, reducing the documentary burden at this stage.

2. Technical-actuarial and occupational health evaluation

Once the request is admitted, the Social Security Administration coordinates the required studies under Article 206 LGSS, using:

• Data on accidents and occupational diseases.
• Information on temporary disability leaves and permanent disabilities.
• Mortality indicators associated with the activity.
• Actuarial analyses on the impact on expenditure and system sustainability.

These studies feed the work of the Evaluation Commission regulated by Order PJC/1146/2025, composed of the Ministries of Inclusion, Labor and Social Economy, Finance and Public Administration, and social agents. In this commission, Social Security provides the database, actuarial analysis, and financial projections, and participates in assessing whether the objective circumstances justifying a reduction coefficient exist.

3. Proposal to the Government and setting the coefficient

If the evaluation proves the arduousness or danger and other conditions, the Social Security Administration:

• Prepares a technical proposal on the appropriateness of the reduction coefficient.
• Determines, with actuarial criteria, the intensity of the coefficient (how many years of advancement) and the additional contribution increase necessary to maintain financial balance, as foreseen by the LGSS.
• Promotes, through the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migrations, the draft royal decree that will establish the coefficient for the affected group.

It is the Government who finally approves by royal decree the reduction coefficient and the additional contribution regime, but based on the technical work and proposal formulated by Social Security.

4. Monitoring, review, and control

The LGSS establishes that reduction coefficients must be reviewed periodically (generally every ten years). Social Security, in this area:

• Monitors the evolution of accident rates and working conditions of the affected group.
• Analyzes the financial and demographic impact of the applied coefficients.
• May promote, through the Evaluation Commission and the Ministry, reviews of the coefficients (modification or even suppression if the causes that motivated them disappear).

Additionally, it is the Social Security Administration that practically applies the coefficients in recognizing individual pensions (INSS and other managing entities), verifying that each applicant meets the minimum activity requirements in the position, minimum age, and registration/contribution required by the specific regulations of their group.

In sum, Social Security concentrates the key normative and technical competence: it sets the framework, evaluates requests with occupational health and financial sustainability criteria, formulates the proposal to the Government, and controls, over time, the correct application and review of the reduction coefficients.

To provide you with a rigorous and useful answer about the results of the latest union elections, I need you to clarify a key point: which specific sectors you are referring to when you mention “the mentioned sectors.” In the current message, the list of sectors does not appear, so I cannot precisely determine the scope of your query (for example, whether it concerns healthcare, metalworking, commerce, transport, agri-food, education, etc.).

This clarification is especially important because union elections in Spain are not a single nationwide process with a global and homogeneous result, but are organized:

• By work centers (or equivalent electoral units).
• By companies or groups of companies.
• And then aggregated by sectors of activity, provinces, autonomous communities, and at the national level.

This implies that when someone asks about the “results of the latest union elections” in a sector, they may be seeking quite different things, for example:

• Which union has been majority at the national level in that sector (for example, whether CCOO, UGT, CSIF, USO, ELA, LAB, or others predominate, depending on the scope).
• How the distribution of delegates and works councils has turned out in a specific autonomous community within that sector.
• The results of a very specific process (for example, elections in a large company in that sector that have media or political impact).
• A more global balance of the last union election cycle (for example, 2023–2027), where “union elections” are discussed as an aggregated process across the entire economy.

Furthermore, the available information is often highly sectoralized and territorialized:

• Some sectors (healthcare, education, public service, transport, etc.) have detailed result reports prepared by the unions themselves, administrations, or employers.
• In other cases, the politically relevant elections are those in leading companies (large factories, logistics operators, distribution chains…), and the news focuses on those specific companies.
• In the public sector, processes are often articulated through general or sectoral boards, which introduces additional nuances (civil servants, statutory staff, labor staff, etc.).

To offer you a serious summary – for example, indicating which unions have won in each sector, how many delegates have been distributed, whether there have been relevant changes in the balance of power, or what political reading can be made of the results – I need to narrow down the search well. Otherwise, I risk giving you a too generic or, worse, imprecise answer, mixing data from areas that may not be those you are interested in.

Therefore, I suggest you specify some of these elements:

• The exact list of sectors about which you want information (for example: private healthcare, public hospitals, retail commerce, banking, construction, road transport, etc.).
• Whether you are interested in the result at the national level, of a specific autonomous community, or even of one or several companies within each sector.
• Whether you are looking only for the overall representation distribution (how many delegates or what percentage each union has) or also a political and union analysis of those results (trends, winners and losers, impact on collective bargaining, etc.).

With those details, I will be able to:

• Locate the latest elections actually held in each of the sectors you indicate.
• Identify which unions have been the first, second, or third force and whether there have been changes compared to the previous cycle.
• Summarize the practical impact of those results: weight in negotiation boards, effects on sectoral agreements, and possible political or labor conflict implications.

Therefore, to proceed and provide you with the answer you seek, please indicate:

• The exact sectors you refer to with “mentioned sectors.”
• The territorial scope (Spain as a whole, an autonomous community, a province, or a specific company).
• Whether you are interested only in the numerical data (delegate distribution) or also a qualitative analysis of what those results mean.

As soon as you confirm these points, I will be able to prepare a detailed and structured summary of the most recent union election results in the sectors you are interested in, tailored exactly to your information needs.